15: Birthday
The winter chill had passed over in Tiola, and the seasons gradually shifted and changed.
From January 15th, all the way to the last day of April, life had continued much the same for the group living in The Shelf.
Mary turned six years old on March 3rd, and Lily herself was about to have her very own birthday the next day. On May 1st, Lily would be 5 years old.
Which led to Eliza’s current predicament. She had spent the entirety of April 30th searching for Lily’s final gift, and it was now 5 am, before Lily would wake up.
‘What… do I get for Lily’s birthday gift?’ She wondered to herself.
She had obviously prepared certain gifts already, due to the type of parent that she was, but she didn’t get anything that she considered a showstopper.
Lily was getting a flute that she had ordered from the very same blacksmith shop that crafted her training weights, a new dress that she had once jumped up and down when talking about, a fancy blanket that she grabbed and was rubbing her hands on at a store once, and lastly, a set of bunny pajamas that she had mentioned.
Of course, all of these gifts were items that Lily had talked about before on a whim. Not something that Lily had talked about in detail.
And more importantly… None of them were home made. Everything didn’t feel personal to her.
Eliza felt completely and utterly stumped.
But thankfully… she wasn’t alone in this.
She went downstairs to Olivia, who was in the midst of cooking. Rather than outright ask her, she looked at what she was cooking and decided to help.
After all, if Olivia gets done with what she’s doing sooner, that means she’ll actually have a chance to talk with Eliza.
After peeling potatoes for a few minutes, Olivia finally came up to Eliza.
“Well, ya’ seem like yer’ thinkin’ of something.”
Eliza nodded.
“I’m… stuck thinking of Lily’s final gift.”
Olivia’s eyes widened.
“Girl, you’re gettin’ her another gift?” she asked.
Eliza nodded.
“Aren’t you worried about her getting spoiled rotten? What if she starts to think everybody gets a lot? I mean, ya’ love Lily, but she’s still a kid.” Olivia responded.
Eliza shook her head again.
“I got her those gifts, but… It’s just… I’d rather get her one really personal gift that she’d love, rather than a bunch of gifts that she might like.”
And then Olivia seemed to understand too.
“Well… she wants to be an adventurer, yeah? Why not somethin’ related to that? That girl adores ya.”
Eliza thought about it for a moment.
“Yeah… You might be right, but… I’m a little worried about her doing something so dangerous.”
Olivia snorted.
“Says the woman doin’ that dangerous thing herself.”
Olivia thought for a moment, then smiled.
“Tell ya’ what. I’ll make a quick cake for you for tomorrow.. I’ll whip it up for ya’ if ya’ can get me some ingredients. While yer’ out gettin’ the ingredients, why not go to that one shop near the adventurer’s guild? Maybe you’ll get some ideas that way.”
Eliza gulped.
“...Thank you, Olivia.” Eliza said, nodding.
In only a few minutes, Eliza had hurried all the way to the adventurer’s guild and made her way inside, where she found Sorin talking to her favorite receptionist.
“Oh! Hey, gramps!” Eliza said happily.
Sorin coughed at her approach, pretending to be shocked.
“I’m not your grandfather, Eliza…”
Eliza laughed, then sighed.
“Might be the closest thing I have to one.” she said. “Mind chatting for a moment?”
Eliza quickly explained her predicament to Sorin quickly, and Sorin seemed to understand.
He paused. And then, after thinking for a moment, came up with an answer.
“Why not carve her a wooden sword? She wants to be an adventurer, like you. Plus, if it’s carved by her mother, wouldn’t she love it all the more?”
Eliza was going to argue, but…
She didn’t know any way to counter what Sorin said.
Swords are dangerous, yes, but Lily wouldn’t be receiving a real sword. It would be made of wood.
And Lily was going to be a destined swordsmaster in the future, so it would only make sense for her to be a little more experienced with it, but…
“It just feels wrong… for a birthday gift?”
Sorin laughed.
“You’re going to spoil her if you keep this up. Eliza, I'm certain. Lily would love this.” He said, looking at Eliza.
Eliza, after thinking about this… agreed.
“I… I know. I just want her to live a happy life… One where her mom is there for her whenever she needs her. I'm worried about her being an adventurer, but... You're right.”
Sorin smiled.
“Then… you should hurry up. Get some rosewood. It’s easy to carve for beginners, and I’d doubt that Lily could hurt herself on it.”
Eliza nodded.
“Thanks, Gramps.” she said.
Sorin coughed at that, seemingly shocked.
Eliza felt like he was coughing a little too much, but… was it her place to point that out?
She made her way to the market street and quickly began observing around her. It wasn’t that hard to find eggs and flour, but finding butter was always a pain in The Shelf. Most dairy products here were imported, due to the brackish groundwater making it hard to have grazing land. Plus, milk was hard to import due to how fast it spoiled. If you didn’t have a companion with magic, or a specially made artifact, it was hard to transport.
But she knew Olivia, and Olivia knew every shop in the area. She knew where she would need to look.
While Eliza was searching through shops for some of the cake ingredients, she noticed the people walking down the market street were much more… ‘friendly’ to each other than before.
It was the season of blooming flowers, and it was the season of romance in The Shelf.
“Ugh. Couples everywhere…” She said to herself.
Eliza, despite occasionally trying to find a partner for the past three months, was still alone.
She had gone on some dates, even. But every time, there were either scheduling issues, or her date managed to ‘get lost’ and never actually show up.
And the three times that she actually managed to meet up with a person and go on a date, she felt as if she was being constantly observed by something, somewhere. It made no sense, but she felt like someone was watching her.
She had begun to think that perhaps her efforts were in vain, that there was something wrong with her as a person.
“Ugh…” She whined.
Eliza had mostly tried flirting with female adventurers, those like herself. After all, out of everyone in the entire town, she believed they were the most likely to be romantically interested in her.
Of course this was in a way, Eliza’s prejudice. She felt that a medeival town would be less willing to tolerate same sex couples, so she sought out adventurers, people who went against the normal way of life.
But in reality, same sex couples in the union were more than just tolerated. They were accepted with open arms.
If the kingdom and empire wanted to throw away valuable men and women, of course the union would accept them. After all, the union itself is the most aware of a certain important detail.
Once the war ends between the kingdom and the empire… The union would be next on the chopping block. They need all the manpower they can get at every moment in preparation.
‘Why are there so many people out? Being happy, and everything… Ugh.’ she thought to herself.
To be blunt, she was bitter. Bitter that she had been dumped once on Earth, and had failed for three months to actually date someone.
And on a day like today, where she was searching for a material with a name like ‘rosewood’... It stung her emotions a lot more than she would like to say.
She eventually got the eggs, butter, sugar, and flour that Olivia needed, and traveled to a familiar shop.
It was a woodworking shop, one that a familiar person she knew would go to to work on his own collected logs. It wasn’t legally his, but he did run it occasionally when the owner wasn’t there.
There, she saw Lucas, Olivia’s husband, moving a plank of wood against a large sheet of metal.
Instead of being friendly with him and chatting, she went straight to business.
“Lucas!” She shouted.
Lucas, from a few meters away, stopped what he was doing.
Eliza continued.
“Sorin said I should get something called ‘rosewood’... Do you happen to have any?” She asked.
Lucas nodded.
“Yes. Three branches. You can’t cut rosewood trees that well with an axe, they fall apart too easily. You have to dry the parts that fall off naturally, then they make good kindling. They’re not very strong, though, and they’re lightweight.” he said, pointing to a corner of his shop.
Eliza nodded.
She looked over and could see the rosewood that was being mentioned. It was no wonder that it was called ‘rose’ wood, since the color of the wood was a beautiful red.
She examined each closely, and found one that was the right size for her to be able to carve a sword out of it.
“How much for this one, Lucas?” She asked.
“Eight flints.” He said carefully.
Lucas was always straightforward, though he did occasionally go off on tangents about something if he knew a lot about them.
Eliza personally felt that Lucas was probably the reason Mary was so smart, since he never forgot anything he learned and would always make an effort to teach people around him things, like he just did.
Eliza handed over the eight flints, nodded, then…
“Hey, do you want to be there for Lily’s birthday party?” she asked.
Lucas looked like he was considering things for a moment. Then he nodded.
After a while, the four people, along with Mary, who was excited for her best friend’s birthday party, were in the base of the inn, all giving tips to Eliza on how she should carve the sword. Lucas was explaining how to cut the wood well, Sorin was explaining how long the length should be for a training sword for a child, Olivia was stopping them from getting out of hand, and Mary was suggesting to add carvings of rose petals on the handle of the sword.
And then, finally, Lily woke up in Eliza’s room only to find her mom not with her.
Normally, Eliza would wake Lily up to help her stretch, eat breakfast, and then Eliza would either take Lily to school or go to work as an adventurer right away.
She looked around, thinking her mom must have gone to work already. Though, her mom did say she’d try to show Lily something special today…
Even if Lily just wanted her mom to be there with her, today.
Lily decided that she’d soak up all of Eliza’s time tomorrow. If her mom was an adventurer, then Lily wanted Eliza to teach her how to be one too. If she tried hard enough, she felt like she would be able to spend more time with her, after all.
Whether Lily realized it or not, she wanted her mom’s acknowledgement.
As she slowly made her way down the stairs, she noticed that the entire inn seemed to be empty. She looked around and didn’t see any of the normal customers there.
After looking around for a bit, it felt like she could hear whispers, and Lily was getting a bit scared.
And then, several people all jumped out and shouted ‘Surprise!’
Lily jumped back in shock.
“Mom?” She asked, finally seeing the people in front of her.
Eliza, Mary, Olivia, Sorin, and Lucas were all there in front of her.
“Happy birthday!” Eliza said, pulling out the cake.
It was a rather plain sweet cake with no icing, but it was still a rarity in this world.
Lily walked up…
“Momma…? Why did you hide all day?” Lily asked.
Eliza felt her heart tear a bit, but she didn’t stop.
“I was getting your gifts, and the stuff for the cake, Lily. I wanted you to be happy, since it’s your birthday! I wanted to get you some of the things you talked about wanting, Lily!”
Lily looked up at Eliza, clearly not pleased.
“I would like it more if you had spent today with me, though… Momma, that’s really mean! You didn’t tell me where you went!”
Eliza nearly crumbled. She didn’t realize how her daughter would feel with her having been gone today for a while.
“I’m… sorry, Lily…”
Lily, upset, frowned.
“I’ll never forgive you! You need to spend all day with me tomorrow!” Lily shouted.
Eliza paused… And then came up with an idea.
She sighed, overdramatically.
“Oh well… I guess if I’m not forgiven, then we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to give you your gifts.” She said in an overly dramatic tone.
“Gifts?” Lily asked, interested. Though she was still pretending to be upset, she was very excited at hearing that she might have gifts.
Eliza grinned secretly and pushed forward a pile of five gifts that she had wrapped each in a thin paper.
“I… I forgive you, momma!” Lily said, smiling.
The group settled down and Lily immediately ran to the small pile of gifts and tore them open, each.
When Lily received the first four gifts, the dress, the flute, the blanket, and the pajamas, she smiled a lot, and even hugged the bunny pajamas Eliza had gotten her. It was clear she was happy with them.
Thankfully, she didn’t play the flute right then and there. The inn may have been cleared out today, but the people on the street would probably be able to hear a child using a flute for the first time.
But then, when she opened the wooden training sword Eliza had carved for her… Lily’s eyes widened.
In some way, Lily felt like this was Eliza approving of Lily wanting to be an adventurer, too. Even though she didn’t know what she was feeling.
“Thank you momma! I love you!” She said, giving a hug.
Eliza smiled, feeling a bit less worried over her perceived failures today.
“Love you too, Lily… Thank you.”
Lily tilted her head, confused.
“What for, momma?”
Eliza laughed.
“For being here.” she said.
Lily didn’t understand what Eliza meant. But eventually, she would.
Lily’s birthday had passed, and now, Lily was a five year old child.
